Despite it's lack of outward charm, I have always liked Tenth Avenue. I've liked it's empty sidewalks, it's tunnel entrances, car washes, and pockets of low brownstone tenements. I've liked knowing that in some of the warehouses on the side streets, painters like my friend
Mary Beth McKenzie have lived and worked under the radar for years in vast, cheap, and sometimes heatless studios. But mostly what has always drawn me to choose 10th for my walk downtown as opposed to the more bustling streets to the east is that because of the low density of buildings, the vistas have been plentiful and interesting. I know that a lot of people love "the grid" of Manhattan, but I don't, particularly, and the thing about 10th and its ramshackle silhouette is that even though you are walking in a straight line, your eyes meander so you feel like you are in a city with a more idiosyncratic layout. But with the opening of the High Line and the coming of Hudson Yards, 10th is changing rapidly. All up and down the avenue the air reverberates with the sounds of construction and soon there will be high rise apartment buildings blocking the panoramic views. I am afraid that ultimately 10th Ave will become just another canyon.
I walked down 10th today from the UWS and when I got to 30th street, I climbed up on to the High Line which itself meanders wonderfully alongside of Chelsea. The High Line has the almost miraculous power of making the city look like a totally different place and along the way there are some things to see that I hope won't ever change: excellent water towers, the Empire State Building behind the rooftop of the curiously named London Towers, a wall that will always serve as canvas for great graffiti masters. But the vista that I love the most is the one out across the Hudson to the Erie Lakawanna Railroad station in Hoboken. The station with its beaux arts clock tower is landmarked, but alas the view of it from the High Line is not. See the construction site which was right at my feet? Soon there will be another building there and if I had to bet, I would bet on its being so tall that the view of the station will be gone. That, I think, is a pity.
Those of you who regularly follow this blog (all three of you) know that I am back in France, painting. And this morning, I was also back in Auzay - one of my favorite endroits on this earth. It was early and I was running. But at the river I stopped and walked across the footbridge comme d'habitude. Two reasons for that. One - the bridge is a little rickety. Two - I wanted to linger and gaze at the lovely river, the little valley it is in, and the old pink house which seems to be under a much more graceful renovation than I feared the last time I was here (see blog posts some time in the fall of 2010). I was looking downstream when out from under the hanging tree branches came not one but two gloriously chubby swans. They swam right under where I stood on the footbridge but my camera was doing something peculiar so I couldn't get the shots I wanted, but above are those I managed to take. In general, it was really quite a red letter day in the fauna department. On the way down to the passerelle, I saw dozens of fat jack rabbits - so fat, in fact, that when they crossed the road in front of me, I thought they were small deer. Then, as I walked back home towards AC what should I see but three - count-em- three blue herons lifting off from a pond up on the hill! The only sad piece of news is that Fripon the donkey was not in his pasture. The last time he went missing it turned out that he was off seeing a lady donkey. So let's hope that is where he is right now!
